Extended Regular Expressions

`.` matches any single character.

A character class `[...]` matches any character within the brackets. For example, `[abc]` matches `a`, `b`, or `c`. To name a range of characters, use a dash. `[a-z]` matches any lowercase letter, whereas `[0-9]` matches any digit.

`*` matches zero or more instances of the thing preceding it. For example, `x*` matches any number of `x` characters, `[0-9]*` matches any number of digits, and `.*` matches any number of anything.

The pattern matches if it occurs anywhere in the value being tested.

To anchor a pattern so that it must match the beginning or end of the value being tested, use `^` at the beginning or `$` at the end of the pattern.